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Firebase vs PubNub: What are the differences?
Firebase: The Realtime App Platform. Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds; PubNub: Build real-time apps quickly and scale them globally. PubNub makes it easy for you to add real-time capabilities to your apps, without worrying about the infrastructure. Build apps that allow your users to engage in real-time across mobile, browser, desktop and server.
Firebase and PubNub can be categorized as "Realtime Backend / API" tools.
Some of the features offered by Firebase are:
- Add the Firebase library to your app and get access to a shared data structure. Any changes made to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.
- Firebase apps can be written entirely with client-side code, update in real-time out-of-the-box, interoperate well with existing services, scale automatically, and provide strong data security.
- Data Accessibility- Data is stored as JSON in Firebase. Every piece of data has its own URL which can be used in Firebase's client libraries and as a REST endpoint. These URLs can also be entered into a browser to view the data and watch it update in real-time.
On the other hand, PubNub provides the following key features:
- PubNub SDKs support over 50 of the most popular environments, including: iOS, Android, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Ruby, Python, PHP and many more.
- Data Push - Establish and maintain persistent socket connections to any device (mobile, browser, desktop and server) and push data to global audiences in less than ¼ of a second
- Presence - Automatically detect when users enter or leave your app and whether machines are online
"Realtime backend made easy" is the top reason why over 318 developers like Firebase, while over 31 developers mention "Massively scalable & easy to use" as the leading cause for choosing PubNub.
Instacart, 9GAG, and Twitch are some of the popular companies that use Firebase, whereas PubNub is used by OpenGov, Hinge, and Blossom. Firebase has a broader approval, being mentioned in 859 company stacks & 992 developers stacks; compared to PubNub, which is listed in 43 company stacks and 12 developer stacks.
We (my team) are building an App where we want to have Bi-directional texting, Single Directional Picture, and audio transfer.
We are building all this using Flutter.
There will essentially be 3 apps, 2 Mobile-based (Android and iOS) and 1 Microsoft Based. We've built up most of the code already, and made a few major mistakes but fixed it(namely had no proper state management).
How things will work:
Person A has a Mobile app 1, Person A presses a button that sends a "communication request" into a Pool of requests. Person B on Desktop App chooses a "communication request" from the pool, and engages in Bi-directional texting with Person A. Person B also opens communication with Person C who is on Mobile app 2, and they engage in Bi-directional texting. Person C will be notified of communication requests through Push Notifications.
So far we've been using Socket.IO, however, I'm starting to think that's not the best.
A problem we've encountered so far is that Person A(Mobile App 1 User), is the person who sends a "communication request" into the "Communication Pool". The Mobile App 1 User, can "cancel" the communication at any point in time. When they do that, I would like for a notification to be sent to Person B, the Desktop User, For them to pick up another communication request.
I am not sure how this should be done however, should it be done in the Back-end, then how does the Front-end get notified of the change?
Any advice on which to choose?
It's so simple when you use Firebase to manage the requests just make new field to the request for example callstate with values like "requesting" "incall" "cancelled" and both A and B can update this field.
I am building an IoT application that will utilize connected air quality sensors to provide real-time indoor air quality in offices. I want to be able to share this data with a few different databases, etc.
Wondering if anyone has any advice on which real-time streaming API would be best for this sort of application, or even how I should think about it?
AblyFor IoT, we support MQTT along with websockets and SSE. The pattern you're suggesting that involves harvesting data from devices and soaking into a database is easy to achieve with one of the Ably integrations (Serverless functions/webhook) . Here are some tutorials to do things like this: https://ably.com/tutorials/reactor-event-zapier#step2-mqtt-ably
We use Pusher at www.justlearn.com. It works fine. When you reach more users, Pusher gets expensive. We use Pusher for live chat between users. Their software is easy to use. We have had issues with auth on Pusher.
We are starting to work on a web-based platform aiming to connect artists (clients) and professional freelancers (service providers). In-app, timeline-based, real-time communication between users (& storing it), file transfers, and push notifications are essential core features. We are considering using Node.js, ExpressJS, React, MongoDB stack with Socket.IO & Apollo, or maybe using Real-Time Database and functionalities of Firebase.
FirebaseI would recommend looking hard into Firebase for this project, especially if you do not have dedicated full-stack or backend members on your team.
The real time database, as you mentioned, is a great option, but I would also look into Firestore. Similar to RTDB, it adds more functions and some cool methods as well. Also, another great thing about Firebase is you have easy access to storage and dead simple auth as well.
Node.js Express MongoDB Socket.IO and Apollo are great technologies as well, and may be the better option if you do not wish to cede as much control to third parties in your application.
Overall, I say if you wish to focus more time developing your React application instead of other parts of your stack, Firebase is a great way to do that.
AblyHello Noam 👋,
I suggest taking a look at Ably, it has all the realtime features you need and the platform is designed to guarantee critical functionality at scale.
Here is an in depth comparison between Ably and Firebase
The start-up guides, tutorials and documentation in general for Firebase are pretty outstanding.
There is 1GB database storage for the free tier as compared to Supabase's 500MB. Not that I think there is anything wrong with Supabase, I intend to try it out someday.
Also if you are doing any sort of personal front-end project, even using a free cluster from MongoDB can be a lot of work and setup, with Firebase (specifically Fire store and Google Authenticator) the implementation of BaaS is quite easy to get up and running.
It's pretty easy to understand the Fires store security rules as well, and if you ever have a hard time trying to figure something out, there is good community support and YouTube tutorials for most topics.
Pros of Firebase
- Realtime backend made easy369
- Fast and responsive268
- Easy setup240
- Real-time212
- JSON188
- Free133
- Backed by google126
- Angular adaptor82
- Reliable67
- Great customer support35
- Great documentation30
- Real-time synchronization25
- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping18
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Super fast development8
- Chat8
- Firebase hosting6
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Ios adaptor6
- Very easy to use4
- Speed of light4
- Brilliant for startups3
- Great3
- It's made development super fast3
- Free authentication solution2
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Low battery consumption2
- Push notification2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Free hosting2
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- Cloud functions2
- Great all-round functionality2
- CDN & cache out of the box1
- Google's support1
- .net1
- Faster workflow1
- Free SSL1
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Easy to use1
- Large1
- Serverless1
- Good Free Limits1
- Simple and easy1
Pros of PubNub
- Massively scalable & easy to use36
- Easy setup25
- Reliable20
- Great support19
- Flexible to integrate to custom applications14
- 99.999% availability guarantees13
- Sockets at Scale13
- High-Performance13
- Multiplexing12
- High-Reliability12
- Scalability7
- 70+ SDKs5
- High-Availability5
- Azure Add-on4
- Security4
- Heroku Add-on3
- Presence3
- Easy to setup3
- Flexible3
- Server-Side Cache2
- Free Plan2
- Support2
- AngularJS Adapter2
- PhoneGap Plugin2
- Data Sync2
- Data Streams2
- Analytics2
- Angular 2+ integration1
- Easy integration with iOS apps1
- Easy setup and very reliable1
- High cost, going up more in Summer '151
- Cool1
- Documentation, easy to use, great people/service1
- CTO stephen also is A++++++1
- Real time and easy to use.1
- Cdsd1
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Cons of Firebase
- Can become expensive31
- Scalability is not infinite15
- No open source, you depend on external company15
- Not Flexible Enough9
- Cant filter queries7
- Very unstable server3
- No Relational Data3
- Too many errors2
- No offline sync2
Cons of PubNub
- Costly1
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